A Premier Poker Party

This year’s incarnation of PartyPoker’s Premier League kicked off over the weekend, squeezing 16 poker egos and a $2 million prizepool into London’s Aspers Casino.

Over the past few months the organisers have been slowly revealing the all-star cast and, after splitting the entrants into two groups, the action began in earnest on Sunday.

The first heat featured a host of talent but at the end of the day it was Jonathan Duhamel who dominated the action. Playing in his first Premier League event, the Canadian managed to outlast the tournament’s veterans such as Scott Seiver, Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari to finish heads-up with Sam Trickett.

Despite being at a chip disadvantage, Duhamel never gave up the fight against Trickett. Indeed, after flopping top pair and the nut flush draw with Ah-9h on a 10h 3h Ad flop, Duhamel was able to claim the match when Trickett called his all-in with Kh –Jd.

That pot not only gifted Duhamel the first heat and $32,000, but a total of 16 points which now makes him a strong contender to progress through to the final stages.

Following the conclusion of Heat 1, the event’s second group of pros took to the felt in search of dollars and points. As in Heat 1 the path the glory was blocked by a plethora of talent, but by the end of the day it was Tobias Reinkemeier who topped the table after beating Dan Shak heads-up.

The high stakes showdown will continue for the next few days until one player walks away with the $450,000 top prize.

Tuesday is the deadline for all working Americans to have submitted their income tax returns to the federal government and Juicy Stakes and Intertops Poker are set to mark this annual occasion by holding a special freeroll competition featuring a $1,000 top prize.

“We run a lot of higher stakes tournaments for our more hard-core players,” said Intertops’ poker manager. “But since our network is generally pretty soft, we created this series to give less competitive players a shot at winning.”